


Puzzle Pieces

by ircnman (halfthyme)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Galaxy Garrison, Gen, Male Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Origin Story, Platonic Relationships, Pre-Voltron: Legendary Defender, all wholesome friendship stuff, buddy fic buddy fic buddy fic-, for Heart & Home: A VLD Family Zine, since it's before voltron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:36:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23304757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfthyme/pseuds/ircnman
Summary: Lance grins sunnily at him. “We’re partnered up!”“And?” Hunk prompts.“And…” Lance pauses for dramatic effect. “Our comm spec is named Pidge Gunderson and he’s tiny,” he rushes out excitedly.“Wait, tiny compared to you?”“No, he’s literally like five feet tall,” Lance explains.Hunk cocks his head. “You know this how?”Lance wiggles his fingers teasingly in Hunk’s general direction. “A little birdie told me.”---For Heart & Home: A VLD Family Zine.
Relationships: Hunk & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt, Hunk & Lance (Voltron), Hunk & Pidge | Katie Holt, Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt
Kudos: 13





	Puzzle Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I originally wrote this piece for the Heart & Home zine last year and finally got around to posting it. I had a lovely time working with everyone & creating a space to explore the friendships of VLD.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Lance stands next to the comforting bulk of his best friend Hunk. “So, who do you think our communications specialist will be?”

“You assumed we’d be in the same group,” Hunk observes.

“Well, duh. No one else could put up with me as their pilot.”

Hunk bumps his shoulder lightly. “Lighten up a little. If we’re gonna be put together, who do you think our comm spec will be?”

“I don’t know,” Lance shrugs. “Hopefully they’re hot though.”

“I can’t believe you’re flirting with someone we don’t even know yet,” Hunk teases.

Before Lance can reply, the announcement system crackles to life. “All unmatched Garrison cadets report to the main deck. I repeat, all unmatched Garrison cadets report to the main deck.”

The two boys look at each other, then begin walking down the hall. Other cadets move around them, often in groups of two or three but sometimes alone. The cramped hallways bustle with movement and chatter.

A hush falls over each cadet as they reach the main deck. The ceiling is incredibly high, its roof almost dizzyingly far away. At the center of the deck is a circular pod that practically everyone recognizes as the flight simulator, where dreams are either made or destroyed. The rest of the deck spreads out around it with well-lit paths leading from one place to another.

Hunk snaps out of his awe first and gently drags Lance towards the message board to their left. An anxious knot of their classmates clusters around it, whispering to each other. 

Hunk stands at the fringe of the group while Lance saunters closer. 

“Excuse me, ladies,” he purrs naturally. The crowd parts slightly around him, allowing the lanky boy to elbow his way to the center enough to make out the names on the wide blue screen. He turns away, accidentally bumping a short dark-haired boy in the process. The boy scowls at him, but Lance doesn’t notice and makes a beeline out of the crush towards his best friend.

Hunk fidgets nervously. “What’s the sitch?”

Lance grins sunnily at him. “We’re partnered up!”

“And?” Hunk prompts.

“And…” Lance pauses for dramatic effect. “Our comm spec is named Pidge Gunderson and he’s tiny,” he rushes out excitedly.

“Wait, tiny compared to you?”

“No, he’s literally like five feet tall,” Lance explains.

Hunk cocks his head. “You know this how?”

Lance wiggles his fingers teasingly in Hunk’s general direction. “A little birdie told me.”

Before Hunk gets the chance to ask what the heck that even means, the announcement system hisses a burst of static until a gruff voice announces, “Garrison cadets, please report to the simulator deck in T-minus five minutes to meet up with your team. Positions are posted on the bridge-side message board. I repeat, cadets-”

The voice is drowned out by a rising tide of excited chatter as the cadets make their way to the center of the dome. Hunk and Lance are engulfed by a rush of orange and white uniforms, managing to stay together only through sheer force of will.

Hunk gets a shoulder to the ribs as people hurry by, letting out a soft grunt. Lance turns to look at him and promptly gets elbowed in the face by a passing cadet who barely pauses to apologize in their rush to find the rest of their team.

The two boys find an alcove to pause in and nurse their wounds. They’re killing precious time, though, so they rest for less than a minute, checking each other to see if they’re both okay.

By the time they head back in the direction of the deck, the stampede has died down to a trickle and they manage to make it there just in time to spot a short kid standing apart from the rest of the teams.

“That must be Pidge,” Lance grins triumphantly.

Hunk looks a little nervous. “Are you sure? Like, 100% sure?”

“Just about!” he chirps and strides toward the literal odd one out. As Lance strides across the room, silence falls and the rest of the teams turn their heads to look at them. Hunk gulps and follows as fifty-odd pairs of eyes track his every movement.

They reach the loner cadet and the whispers start up. “Did Iverson really pair them up?” “Wow, what a team of losers.” “Not much of a competition this year, huh.”

All three pretend to ignore this as Lance waves to the new kid, though with less energy than before. “Hi, I’m Lance! I’ll be the pilot on our team. You must be Pidge Gunderson, our communications specialist. It’s nice to meet you.”

Pidge just nods silently, their peanut butter colored hair shifting position slightly with the movement.

Hunk steps in and offers a hand. “I’m Hunk and I’m the engineer on the team! But, uh, I guess you already figured that out. Anyways, it’s nice to meet you and all that.” When Pidge doesn’t shake his hand, he awkwardly smooths his shirt out, then sticks his hands in his pockets.

Pidge smiles slightly, though they don’t seem like they intend to mean it rudely. Then Pidge motions towards the center of the room, where Iverson is glaring at the group. Somehow they must have missed the characteristic clack of his shoes on the hard floors. 

The room chuckles a little, laughing at their expense, then quiets down as Iverson directs his power stare at the rest of the teams. Hunk feels himself flush hot with embarrassment but resolves to focus on the information so that they can prove everyone wrong.

Obviously, since it’s the first day of team training, they won’t be using the flight simulator for a while. It’s a goal, and hopefully not an obstacle, but none of the teams are even close to even trying it out. Instead, Iverson has them running routine drills, with the occasional teamwork relay activity thrown in.

Looking around, Hunk can see that some teams get along better than others. An instructor has already had to split up several fights between overly competitive teams, but as Hunk scans the room he also notices a couple of groups that are already working together like a well-oiled machine. He can only hope that they’re able to do the same.

Unfortunately, as he finds out about an hour later, making this team work isn’t as easy as he hoped. Sure, everyone can do their jobs individually, but together they have no idea what to do. Pidge won’t really talk to them, which is clearly freaking Lance out, and when Lance freaks out he starts to babble. Hunk tunes back into the conversation to hear “And that’s how my uncle’s best friend’s girlfriend’s snack shop on the beach got raided by an alligator” and wonders where it all went wrong.

He shares his doubts with Lance that night back at the dorm, avoiding any details that might indicate that he was not, in fact, listening to Lance’s one-sided conversation. They’re lying in their bunks, head to head, when Hunk has a brilliant idea.

“I got it,” he blurts, accidentally interrupting Lance’s tirade about a fellow cadet (“and have you seen her eyes, they’re the most beautiful brown I’ve ever seen-”). “Uh, sorry, I just. I think there’s a way to make us the best team in the Garrison.”

Lance grins. “Don’t worry about it. Go on, I’m curious now. What does it involve?”

“Look, I know it’s usually ‘our thing’, but maybe next time we sneak out to go to Sky Dome we should invite Pidge. Y’know, for team bonding and all that.” Hunk shrugs a little and looks to his best friend for support.

Lance’s face is lit up with a huge grin. “That’s a great idea! How about tomorrow night?”

Hunk lets out a sigh of relief. “Sure, why not?”

They spend the rest of the night planning and laughing, lying down on their pushed-together bunks with their heads next to each other. Hunk falls asleep feeling warm and content even as his muscles ache from the day’s training.

-o-o- 

Their training exercise for the next day is a thousand-piece puzzle (Iverson barks that “This activity is not for relaxation!”, but they don’t take that seriously), which gives them an opportunity to fill Pidge in on the scheme. 

“We should start with the edge pieces, then move inward,” Pidge announces, then notices that Lance is already working on an inside chunk. He sighs and makes eye contact with Hunk, who shrugs as if to say “what can you do?”.

“Hey, uh, are you busy tonight?” Hunk looks down and fiddles with a piece in his hand, scanning the mess for its match.

Pidge cocks his head a little. “No, why?”

“Well, we were planning to sneak out and chill at this place we usually go to, and uh, well, do you want to come with us?”

Lance looks up at that and grins. “Yeah, it’ll be fun! Team bonding and all that.” 

The smaller boy looks hesitant. “What if we get caught? I can’t afford to get in trouble...” He trails off. Hunk senses an unspoken “yet” at the end but doesn’t press it.

“Oh, don’t worry. We’ve never been caught,” Lance tosses casually over his shoulder with a wink as he works on moving his finished section into place, matching it up with Pidge’s corner. “Voila!”

Their teammate looks at Lance, then the puzzle, then back at Lance, and finally nods slowly. “Okay, I’m in.”

Hunk leans back on his heels, tension leaking out of his body. “That was easier than I thought it would be…” he sighs incredulously under his breath. In a louder tone, he says, “Glad to hear it. So here’s the plan—” 

That night must be their lucky night, because getting to Pidge’s room is a breeze. According to the other boy, he doesn’t have a roommate (he wouldn’t explain why, either), so they agree to meet at his room, then sneak past the instructors’ lounge and out the back door.

It’s quiet and Lance and Hunk are old pros at this, so they make good time. When they reach Pidge’s door, Lance gestures for his friend to keep an eye on the hallway while he lets their teammate know it’s time. 

As Lance sizes up the door, Hunk spots a shadow approaching along the wall. It looks familiar -- must be an instructor. He frantically taps Lance on the shoulder to get his attention, then jerks a thumb towards the hall. The other boy gets it immediately and tries to signal that he can’t do anything without giving away their position. It takes Hunk a few precious seconds to decipher his meaning, but he gulps, realizing what he has to do.

Reaching into his pockets, he digs out a thin sheet of metal. Lance looks on quizzically as Hunk inserts it into the door slot. It’s not a key card, but the door should send an alert to Pidge, or so he hopes. His fingers are shaking a lot, which makes it difficult to hold the metal in. 

Lance can see the full silhouette now and gulps. It’s their Physics instructor, notorious for upholding the rules to the letter. Getting caught out of his room would ruin everything he’s worked so hard for. He backs up, making sure to give Hunk some space to work in but still as close as possible. Lance wants to ask if anything’s budged yet but can’t squeeze a sound out of his throat.

Suddenly the door swings open, causing Hunk to fall into the room face-first. He hits with a loud thwump and rolls like they were taught in Self Defense class. Lance trips over his own feet in surprise and falls backwards into the exact spot Hunk landed. Pidge looks down at them in confusion but quickly puts the situation together from their commotion and panicked eyes. 

He shuts the door immediately and whisper-shouts, “Hide under the empty bed. There’s no way they won’t check in here first.” Lance and Hunk nod and scramble for the bed.

Their feet are barely pulled in when they hear the soft whoosh of the door opening. Both cadets are holding their breath, hearts beating so loud that Hunk worries they’ll give them away.

A gruff voice asks, “Cadet, would you care to address the loud noise heard from your room just moments ago?” 

Pidge’s voice seems a little higher-pitched than usual but otherwise normal as he replies, “Sure thing! As you can see, I was working on a personal project. That thump was from this piece --” He pauses to pat an object, which makes a dull metallic sound when hit, then continues, “Hitting the floor when I accidentally dropped it.”

The instructor makes a sound in the back of his throat but seems satisfied. “Very well, continue on. And keep it down for the rest of the hall, please.”

“I understand. It won’t happen again.”

The door closes seconds later, but Hunk and Lance wait another minute or so to come back out. Their hearts are still pounding in their chests and Hunk’s hands are shaking again.

“Guess sneaking out isn’t on the agenda for tonight, huh?” Lance sighs.

“Understatement of the year, buddy,” Pidge quips as Hunk flops onto the vacant bed.

Hunk groans, “I never want to move again. I thought I was going to die down there.”

Pidge pats him on the back. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t let that happen to you.”

“Hey, what about me?!” Lance protests jokingly.

“Yeah, you too,” Pidge says, pretending to sound reluctant but cracking a small grin.

They sit in comfortable silence for a while, interrupted only by the rustles that accompany Lance’s changes in position. Gradually, a warm smile creeps across Hunk’s face. “Good work, team.” Lance and Pidge echo the sentiment, and Hunk can feel something click into place. They’re going to be the best team ever.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! You can find me on Tumblr at halfthyme.


End file.
